May 18, 2008

Tensegrity

Used by Buckminster Fuller it means, "a portmanteau of tensional integrity. It refers to the integrity of structures as being based in a synergy between balanced tension and compression components."

Further more, "Tensegrity is the exhibited strength that results "when push and
pull have a win-win relationship with each other". Tension is
continuous and compression discontinuous, such that continuous pull is
balanced by equivalently discontinuous pushing forces.

Buckminster Fuller explained that these fundamental phenomena were
not opposites, but complements that could always be found together.
Tensegrity is the name for a synergy between co-existing pairs of
fundamental Physical law; of push and pull, and compression and tension, or repulsion and attraction."